auto italia 31A
t first sight, the house at 50 Via Candiolo,
Turin seems to have only one storey.
Surrounded by imposingly tall, impersonal
blocks of flats, it looks even lower than it
actually is. Passing by, you would barely
notice this little house stuck between two concrete
monsters, with its shutters pulled rigidly down and its
garden gone to seed. Perhaps the old red Renault
parked in the backyard, or the Fiat 500 and Panda out
front might have caught your attention – all of them
neglected, long off the road and apparently forgotten.
But the crumbling house was not as abandoned as it
seemed – and it also possessed an underground
secret. The house’s owner, now sadly passed away,
was one Osvaldo Avalle. Fully aware that the Turin area
he was living in was becoming less and less safe,
Signor Avalle decided to create a huge secret shelter
below ground level, accessed by a lift from the garden,
half-hidden behind a tree. That old Fiat Panda was not
parked there by chance. It was used to conceal, even
to block, the opening. Osvaldo’s stage set was very
effective, since nobody ever suspected the existence
of his underground garage and its contents. Only a few
were even aware of what was in Osvaldo’s back shed,
which was once home to his electrical shop.
Osvaldo more or less retired from that business in
2010, deciding to concentrate on cars, which were
his real passion. In his final years, he devoted himself
to working on both his and his few friends’ cars.
After a while, he started to sell off his collection,
and then he stopped seeing people. It was said he
was very ill with diabetes. His foot was eventually
amputated; apparently his only concern, once he’d
left the operating room, was whether or not he’d be
able to continue driving.
Cars and racing were a true obsession for him,
arguably the only reason for life; something in the
blood, you might say. Very few people know that his
father Mario and uncle Piero were both skilful drivers,
having raced in various Mille Miglia events during the
late 1940s and early 1950s, often driving cars that they
had assembled themselves. Mario excelled in the up-to-
750cc sports car category. In the 1947 edition of the
Mille Miglia, for instance, he left in his wake no fewer
than 40 other competitors. Tragically Piero lost his life
in the 1952 Mille Miglia, together with his co-driver
Sandro Fiorio (the man in charge of public relations at
Lancia, and the father of Cesare Fiorio, the legendary
Lancia rally team manager). That sad occurrence